having been around this lake
before the seasons changed
and the chill set in
you know the eaten are just below
and you must be cautious and have his silence
you must not say the moon will be a mercury dime
so your ripples might cancel his own
and no argument come between you
or note the late-season terns circling far above
or the dark gathering on the water
or gesture ahead where months ago
the trees gave way to meadow
just have the the trail’s end
where night no longer embraces

Home

when you walked home
the yellow-lacquered shops
seemed some other’s country

where old men scuttle their
cardboard shacks and disappear
and children weep in the alley

searching your eyes for theirs
but it is surely yours now isn’t it
in every doleful threshold

Adam's renaming the animals
utterance mangled by silence

Richard Freed works in Iowa State University’s program in Rhetoric and Professional Communication. Since 2001 he’s been writing poetry now and then and has published in The Adirondack Review, The Melic Review, Octavo, Blood Lotus, and here in 2RV. contact